Relativism denies the reality of the Absolute as it believes that all supposed truth is only social, linguistically constructed opinion (perception / definition / 'just rhetoric'). Therefore, relativism sees only perception and is blind to essence as well as context.Paradoxically, relativism considers its own premises to be absolute (as well as superior and elite). If all statements are hypothetically only semantic constructs then obviously that very statement itself has no inherent reality and is also just a value-laden linguistic construct. Thus, by it's own criteria, relativism is fallacious.⚡Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012) US American physician, psychiatrist, controversial spiritual teacher, author, Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man, S. 136, 2008

General quotes

I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Jesus, Matthew 5, 44 (NT)

Jesus said to them: "When you make the two [i.e. brain hemispheres] into one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom]." Gospel of Thomas, verse 22, part of the Biblical apocrypha, 50-140, 350 AD, rediscovered 1945

4. Unmoving, It is one, faster than the mind. The senses cannot reach It, for It proceeds ahead. Remaining static It overtakes others that run. On account of Its presence. Matarsiva(the wind) conducts the activities of beings.5. It moves; It moves not. It is far; It is near. It is within all; It is without all.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. […]We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) Austrian British professor of Western philosophy, philosophers of science, author, Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1, Routledge, 1945, edited version 1995

Conclusions

You are not just the drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.Jalal ad-Din Muḥammad Rumi (1207-1273) Persian Muslim Sufi mystic, jurist, theologian, poet, source unknown

A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn’t the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn’t flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. Donald James Wheal [Thomas Dresden] (1931-2008) British scriptwriter, television writer, non-fiction writer, novelist, source unknown

Question the media and you're a conspiracy kook. Criticize the government and you're a Russian agent. Oppose war and you're anti-American. Defend Palestinians and you're an anti-Semite. Good is bad. Up is down. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.Caitlin Johnstone, US American utopia prepper, feminist blogger, poet, rogue journalist, Twitter comment, 31. January 2018

Insights

There is nothing absolute and final. If everything were ironclad, all the rules absolute and everything structured so no paradox or irony existed, you couldn't move. One could say that man sneaks through the crack where paradox exists. Itzhak Bentov ( 1923-1979) Czech-born Israeli American scientist, inventor, mystic, author, A Cosmic Book. On the Mechanics of Creation, 1988

We are broken. And we will not be mended. Until we remember that we are unbreakable. Louise Diamond, Ph.D., US American graduate of Peace Studies, The Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, founder of The Peace Company

Water is fluid, soft and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. The wise leader knows that yielding overcomes resistance, and gentleness melts rigid defences. The leader does not fight the force of the group’s energy, but flows and yields and absorbs and let’s go. A leader must endure a great deal of abuse. If the leader were not like water, the leader would break. The ability to be soft makes the leader a leader. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.Lao Tzu (604-531 BC) Chinese sage, philosopher, founder of Daoism, cited in: John Heider (1936-2010) US American Taoist, The Tao of Leadership. Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age, Greendragon Publishing, 19. April 1986

When there is no more separation between "this" and "that," it is called the still-point of Tao. At the still-point in the center of the circle, one sees the infinite in all things. Zhuangzi [Chuang Tzu] (~365-290 BC) influential Chinese philosopher during the warring states period, source unknown

The earth is conscious. Nature is conscious. All life is conscious. […] In keeping with the paradox of the Divine, our Enlightenment [the age of reason] turned the light off. The Enlightenment that began in the late 1400s, in fact, was the beginning of turning off our inner light. We began to take a reason[able] look at the universe. Everything had to have a reason. The end result was: everything that couldn't reason ceased to have value. Trees can't reason. Nature can't reason. Women don't reason very well. They are very emotional. […]Intuition, the mystical sense, started to frighten people. […] Women don't trust their own mystical sense. They deny their own. [They]'ve bought into the system that reason governs the soul. Video DVD presentation by Caroline MyssMyss.com (*1952) US American spiritual teacher, mystic, medical intuitive, bestselling author, The Sacred Spaces in Morocco, minutes ~35:39, ~36:43, 61:41 minutes duration, Morocco, recorded 15.-26. October 2011

True, the "sense" is often something that could just as well be called "nonsense," for there is a certain incommensurability between the mystery of existence and human understanding. […] "Sense" [reality] and "nonsense" [paradoxy] are merely man-made labels which serve to give us a reasonably valid sense of direction. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalytist, founder of a new school of depth psychology, author, Psychology and Alchemy – Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 12, S. 222, 1944, Routledge, London, 2nd edition 1968

If Christianity demands faith in such contradiction, it does not seem to me that it can very well condemn those who assert a few paradoxes more. Oddly enough, the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness. Hence, a religion becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or waters down its paradoxes; but their multiplication enriches because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalytist, founder of a new school of depth psychology, author, R. F. C. Hull, editor, Jolande Jacobi, editor, C. G. Jung Psychological Reflections. A New Anthology of His Writings, 1905-1961, S. 356, 1945, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1. May 1973alternative source: ''Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works. Volume 12, 18

Can you believe that autonomy is meaningful apart from Him [God]? The belief in ego autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, in which your freedom lies. The ego sees all dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing itself. But do not be deceived by its interpretation of your conflict. The ego always attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it has the power to do this, it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy is nothing else. The ego is totally confused about reality, but it does not lose sight of its goal. It is much more vigilant than you are, because it is perfectly certain of its purpose. You are confused, because you do not know yours. ⚡A Course in Miracles workbook, Urtext, chapter 10, section 6, 26. August 1966

The Government cannot make up their minds, and so ➤ they decide only to be undecided, ➤ resolve only to be irresolute, ➤ are adamant for drift, ➤ solid for fluidity,➤ all-powerful but impotent! ⚡Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British prime minister of the United Kingdom during the 2nd World War (1940-1945) and (1951-1955), racist war criminal, source unknown

It is true that a lotus flower may be born of a quagmire, but it is also true that we can be pricked by a splendid rose. Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) Catalan Spanish Roman Catholic priest, scholar, proponent of inter-religious dialogue, Opera Omnia Volume III Christianity, Part Two A Christophany, S. 155, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2016

Spirit is the suchness, the isness, the essence of each and every thing that exists. [...]Paradox is simply the way nonduality looks to the mental level. Spirit itself is not paradoxical; strictly speaking, it is not characterizable at all. [...]Hierarchy is illusion. There are levels of illusion, not levels of reality. [...]You go from unconscious Hell to conscious Hell, and being conscious of Hell, of samsara, of lacerating existence, is what makes growing up – and being an adult – such a nightmare of misery and alienation. [...]Development is not regression in service of ego, but evolution in transcendence of ego. ⚡Ken Wilber (*1949) US American transpersonal philosopher, consciousness researcher, thought leader of the 3rd millennium, author, The Eye of Spirit. An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad, chapter 1 "The Spectrum of Consciousness: Integral Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy", Shambhala Publications, 1998, Boston, 3rd subedition 11. December 2001

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know – all mystics – Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well.Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.Anthony de Mello SJ (1931-1987) Indian Catholic Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, spiritual leader, cited in Steve Brown, Approaching God. How to Pray, S. 94, 1995, Ballantine Books, 1st paperback edition April 1996

The Master maintained that what the whole world held to be true is false; so the pioneer is always in a minority of one. He said: "You think of Truth as if it were a formula you can pick up from a book. If you wish to follow Truth you must learn to walk alone." Anthony de Mello SJ (1931-1987) Indian Catholic Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, spiritual leader, Parables of the Master, undated

Science can explain what's happening down inside atoms and what's happening at the edge of the universe, but it cannot explain consciousness. It's a paradox – without consciousness there would be no science, but science doesn't know what to do, at all, with consciousness. Peter Russell, M.A., D.C.S. (*1946) awakened British physicist, visionary futurist, eco-philosopher, producer of three films on consciousness, author, cited in: article Science and Spirituality, presented by the media outlet Timeline, March/April 1999

Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion.Spiritual teachers teach in the language of paradox and mystery and what seems like contradiction, but then they show us that it is not contradiction at all. A paradox is seeming contradiction which is not really contradictory at all if looked at from another angle or through a larger frame. A paradox always demands a change on the side of the observer. If we look at almost all things honestly we see everything has a character of paradox to it. Everything, including ourselves, and most especially God, has some seeming contradictions, some mysterious parts that we cannot understand or explain. Can you think of an exception? Institutions, countries, groups, religions, and persons have many inherent contradictions. Understanding a paradox is to look at something long enough so as to overcome the contradiction and see things at a different level of consciousness. This should be one of the primary and totally predictable effects of authentic God experience. God surely greases the wheels of awareness and even the evolution of humanity by growing people toward a much higher capacity. Wouldn’t you expect God to have that effect? Father Richard Rohr O.F.M. (*1943) US American Franciscan friar, author, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, Meditation 29 of 52, The Art of Letting Go, CD, 2013

[The anthropologist Graham Townsley translates the Peruvian term "Tsai Yoshtoyoshto" [spirit language] as "twisted language". [A Yaminahua shaman from Amazonia who he interviewed stated,] With my koshuiti [twisted language song] I want to see – singing, I carefully examine things – twisted language brings me close but not too close – with normal words I would crash into things – with twisted ones I circle around them – I can see them clearly.[Direct and concrete language frightens the spirits and therefore according to Townsley must be] deliberately constructed in an elliptical and multi-referential fashion so as to mirror the refractory nature of the beings who are their objects. Yoshi are real beings who are both 'like and not like' the things they animate. They have no stable or unitary nature and thus, paradoxically, the 'seeing as' of 'twisted language' is the only way of adequately describing them. Metaphor here is not improper naming but the only proper naming possible. Article by Graham Townsley, Canadian-British anthropologist, film producer, director, writer, Song Paths The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge, presented by L'Homme Année, volume 33, issue 126, S. 449-468, 1993Alternative source: Jeremy Narby (*1959) Swiss-Canadian anthropologist, author, The Cosmic Serpent. DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, S. 79, Georg, 1998, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 5. April 1999

To consent to paradox is to consent to suffering that which is greater than the ego. The religious experience lies exactly at that point of insolubility where we feel we can proceed no further. This is an invitation to that which is greater than one's self. Robert A. Johnson (*1921) US American Jungian analyst, lecturer, author, Owning Your Own Shadow. Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1991, reprint edition 5. March 1993, Harper One, 9. June 2009

Words have a range of meanings. […] The word 'myth' nowadays means false. […] One of the true meanings of the word 'myth' is emergenttruth. The word that means truth has now come to mean false. Words can change that much. But words have a way of making comeback. […] At the end of an era fact and myth approach each other. Video presentation by Michael MeadeMosaicvoices.org US American storyteller, mythologist, ritualist, spokesman in the Men's Movement, author, Facebook entry, posted 5. April 2010, Mythic Nature of the Soul, YouTube film, minute 3:34, 6:42 minutes duration, posted 3. August 2011

Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with your shadow. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. It is in facing your conflicts, criticisms, and contradictions that you grow up. You actually need to have some problems, enemies, and faults! You will remain largely unconscious as a human being until issues come into your life that you cannot fix or control and something challenges you at your present level of development, forcing you to expand and deepen. It is in the struggle with our shadow self, with failure, or with wounding, that we break into higher levels of consciousness. I doubt whether there is any other way. People who refine this consciousness to a high spiritual state, who learn to name and live with paradoxes, are the people I would call prophetic speakers. We must refine and develop this gift. Sister Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B. (*1936) US American Benedictine nun, speaker, author, Father Richard Rohr O.F.M. (*1943) US American Franciscan friar, adapted from Prophets Then, Prophets Now, 7 Audio CDs, 2006

Being a prophet demands two seemingly opposites: radical traditionalism and shocking iconoclasm at the same time. If people see just one of those first, they’ll presume you’re only that. 'Oh, he’s just a pious little Christian boy' or 'She’s an angry woman!' They cannot imagine that those two can really coexist, tame, and educate one another. Holding the tension of opposites is the necessary education of the prophet, and the Church has given little energy to it. Frankly, it takes non-dual thinking to pull this off, and we have pretty much trained people in the simplistic choosing of one idealized alternative while denigrating the other. Father Richard Rohr O.F.M. (*1943) US American Franciscan friar, source unknown

[T]he function of a mythic belief system is to tell stories that eliminate the uncanny, the absurd, the bizarre and the dissonant from our self-understanding, with the all too human dream of a final pattern that makes everything make sense.There is, however, another kind of story that functions in a way that is radically otherwise to a mythic belief-system: a parable – a paradox formed into story (e.g. Jesus). This different kind of story doesn't so much bring about a reconciliation of opposites as it derails the very edifice of one's social, political and religious landscape.Simply put, if myth is the agent of order and stability, a parable (poetics of paradox) is the agent of rupture, disequilibrium and (hopefully) transformation. These paradoxes are consistently found at the heart of the parables and short stories of the historical Jesus, and they are always a somewhat unnerving experience. You can usually recognize a paradox because your immediate reaction will be something along the lines of "I don’t know what you mean by that story but I'm certain I don't like it." John Dominic Crossan (*1934) Irish US American religious scholar, former Catholic priest, co-founder of Jesus Seminar, premier historical Jesus scholar in the world, expert on biblical archaeology, anthropology, the New Testament, researcher into the historical Jesus of Nazareth, author, The Dark Interval. Towards a Theology of Story, Polebridge Press, 1. October 1994

Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life's sorrow with grace. Matthew Fox (*1940) US American Episcopalian (formerly Roman Catholic) priest, author, source unknown

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. Wendell Berry (*1934) US American academic, cultural and economic critic, farmer, man of letters, Standing by Words. Essays, 1982 essay Poetry and Marriage. The Use of Old Forms, 1983, Counterpoint, paperback issue 12. July 2011

People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food. Wendell Berry (*1934) US American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, farmer, source unknown

The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) US American writer, The Crack-Up, February 1936

The idea is to die young as late as possible.Ashley Montagu (1905-1999) British-American anthropologist, humanist, author on race and gender, politics and development, source and date unknown

Single black and white feather, 6. August 2008

[F]inding and recognizing paradoxes fuels the power to rethink, reframe, and see more than one side of things. As soon as you become comfortable with one way of seeing things, someone will point out truth in the opposite point of view. Blog article The paradoxes of organization, presented by the stories outlet Medium, David W. Gray, 27. September 2014

That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.Richard Bach (*1936) US American Navy pilot, writer, The Bridge Across Forever. A Love Story', character Pan, 1984

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. Richard Bach (*1936) US American writer, source unknown

Inanna […] epitomized the essence of contradiction, of the unimaginable variety and possibility in the created world […] she introduced the possibility of the individual who thinks for herself/himself. […] Through the choices we make, we build the unique individuality of ourselves.As the goddess of paradox, she is the model of unity in multiplicity. Each of us reflects a bit of her discordance in ourselves. Each of us is burdened with the chore of gathering our many conflicting pieces together into a semblance of order and congruence. Betty De Shong Meador, US American certified Jungian analyst, active in the women's movement, translator, Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna, first author of record, Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart. Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna, University of Texas, 2000

Paradoxes are simply places where our rational minds bump into their own limitations. David Lewis Anderson, US American physicist, time travel researcher

It's the point of power. If you are understanding things which appear to be opposites at the same time, that means you have to be at the center of those two things. They have to be both coming from you. Therefore it positions you squarely at the center, squarely at the balance point, which is your point of power. Bashar, channeled by Darryl Anka (*1951)US American special effects designer, Hollywood, producer, script writer, channeller

America has the most of everything, and the best of nothing. John Keats (1795-1821) English Romantic poet, source unknown

When you see➢ that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion,➢ when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing,➢ when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors,➢ when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you, ➢ when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice,you may know that your society is doomed. ⚡Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian-American philosopher, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, Atlas Shrugged, 19573

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) German polymath, poet, playwright, dramatist, novelist, aphorism

What a strange paradox! Every warrior on the path of knowledge thinks, at one time or another, that he's learning sorcery, but all he's doing is allowing himself to be convinced of the power hidden in his being, and that he can reach it. Carlos Castaneda (*1925-supposedly †1995) Peruvian US American anthropologist, diplomat, author; expressed by the major character in the series of books on Nagual 'Sorcery' Don Juan Matus, The Power of Silence. Further Lessons of don Juan, Washington Square Press, 1987, reissued edition 1. June 1991

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? Milan Kundera (*1929) Czech-born naturalized French citizen writer, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Harper & Row, 1984

Genius […] seems to proceed from sudden revelation rather than conceptualization, but there is an unseen process involved. Although the genius’s mind may appear stalled, frustrated with the problem, what it is really doing is preparing the field. […] There is a struggle with reason which leads, like a Zen koan, to a rational impasse from which the only way forward is by a leap from a lower to a higher attractor energy pattern. Dr. David R. Hawkins, Power vs. Force. The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, S. 164, Hay House, February 2002

The soul is the author of its own fate by the exercise of its own choice and selection. Each gravitates to its own concordant dimension. Spiritual paradoxes may appear in response to spiritual choice; for example, the spiritual seeker wants love and joy but that intention triggers the surfacing of all that obstructs it and prevents its appearance. Those who dedicate themselves to peace and love automatically pull up from the unconscious all that is cruel, unloving, and hateful to be healed. This may bring about consternation until judgmentalism about it is replaced with compassion and forgiveness. These were, after all, what had obstructed the love and joy, so one can be thankful that these deterrents have been brought up to be resolved by the spiritual tools available. This process of spirituality, in which one works through the obstacles, may seem painful at times but it is only transitional. The mistakes now reappear but are resolvable and recontextualized from a higher understanding. Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 24-25, 2003

Spiritual pride can work in two directions, either to augment vanity or, paradoxically, by taking the positionality that one is worse than others. To chant "I am nothing and He (God) is All" is just as far from the truth as the opposite extreme. The position "I am just a worthless worm" is just vanity in rags instead of in robes. Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 330, 2003

Although ridiculing faith and trust, skeptics themselves exhibit the same naive confidence and faith in their own subjective internationalizations and mentalized perceptions. The skeptic states that the mind is unable to know the truth, and then, paradoxically, uses that very mind to prove the validity of doubt and mistrust, thus even the skeptic is basically motivated by the same naive trust. Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man, S. 166, 2008

Instead of being ashamed that we are a spiritual seeker with a physical illness, we instead become thankful and say, "Aha!" Something is coming up to be healed". We want the capacity to bring up the various things to be healed; thus, it is a sign of progress, not of falling back. We can be happy that we have a chance to heal those things that, paradoxically, are actually brought up by major or rapid spiritual progress. Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), Healing and Recovery, chapter 2 "Assisting Healing", S. 62, 2009

So you work like a dog to reach enlightenment, then you realize there's nobody to become enlightened. You thought there was somebody or some individual that's going to become enlightened and then you find out that that's fiction. (Laughter) You wasted your whole life pursuing the fiction that you [someobody] are going to become enlightened. Then you discover there is nobody to become enlightened! What a relief. Nobody here has to become enlightened. You don't have to buy into that goal in life. You say the heck with enlightenment. I just want to be stupid and ugly. To be happy if you're stupid and ugly means you're enlightened.Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), Cottonwood Seminar Handling Spiritual Challenges, DVD 1 of 3, 24. April 2010

Oxymorons – Paradoxical word combinations

An oxymoron is a compressed paradox (figure of speech) in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side. The rhetorical term oxymoron, made up of two Greek words meaning "sharp" and "dull," is itself oxymoronic.

Koans, philosophical questions and synchronicities

Good thoughts, words, actions – tiles on the path to completeness

Zarathustra teaches that it is through the paradoxical medium of the material world that human beings achieve spiritual completeness. Thoughts, words and actions have to be expressed through the material medium. The Zarathushti maxim is:

good thoughts,

good words and

good actions.

The advancement of each individual spiritually towards haurvatat, (perfection, completeness) comes along with each good choice in thought, word, and action. Eventually the world will become a better place.

Making the two into one

Jesus said to them: "When you make the two [i.e. brain hemispheres] into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye [i.e. mirror neurons], a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."